"Sometimes I wish my parents had sued each other for divorce immediately after I was born," I said after I regained control of myself. "That way I wouldn't have to live through all this. Everything would have been decided down to the last Egyptian vase or Persian rug before I even had a chance to understand that most kids have two parents living at home, parents who are not on opposite sides of a seesaw trying to outweigh each other in importance.
"What you don't have, you don't miss, I suspect. At the beginning of all this, things were not all that different from the way they are now. I used to think of myself as the golden latchkey child who returned to an empty house in which there was still a maid, a cook, and around it, a small army of grounds people cutting and pruning to keep our home looking like something special in the gated community. My parents were rarely home when I got home from school. Most of the time though, my mother would get home before my father. One day I think she decided that getting home ahead of him made it look like her job was less important, so she started to stay later and later in order to arrive home after my father.
"Then there was the division of labor. My mother discussed the menu with the cook. My father was in charge of the grounds maintenance employees. They had a business manager to help with the bills and keep the separate accounts, and everything they bought for the house they evaluated together and both had to agree to buy or it had to be bought with separate money."
"That doesn't sound like a family. It sounds like a business," Star muttered.
"You're probably right. They saw it more like a partnership with each of them holding equal shares. Maybe my family can go on the stock market, Dr. Marlowe," I said. "Lester Incorporated. Only, who'd want to invest in it since the partners don't?" I added.
She gave me that blank therapist's face, that look that made me turn to myself for the answers.
"Yes, that's what's happened," I said to Star. "You've hit it right on the head--their relationship was more like a business than a marriage. And now the company's gone bankrupt."
"You've still got plenty of money," Star said with that now familiar twist in her lips that assured me I would find no sympathy on this subject.
"Oh, yes, plenty of money. The company's just out of that other stuff families need. You know, what's it called, Dr. Marlowe? Love?" I nodded before she could respond. "That's it. Love. We ran out of love and there just wasn't any to be had so we had to close the company doors.
"Now, the partners are fighting over the assets and I just happened to be another asset. Each of them wants to be sure he gets his fair share, you see. Well, maybe each would like to get more than his fair share. That way, he or she can claim some kind of victory. That way they won't feel so bad about the years they've invested in this business.
"And so my dear sisters, or OWP
's as Misty has called us, I find myself in court where the most personal details about my life are openly displayed, renamed as exhibits and spread out on tables for lawyers, sociologists and therapists to gawk at. Do you have any idea what it's like to have to answer personal questions in the judge's office with a court stenographer taking down your every word and the judge peering at you with fish eyes?" I asked them, raising my voice.
Misty shook her head. Star stared and Cat bit her lower lip and nodded. Maybe she did know. We'd soon find out, I thought
"I knew things were getting worse and worse before the beginning of the divorce, but I guess I either wouldn't face the possibility of their getting a divorce or I thought they wouldn't do it because of the waste of time and money. They would just continue to live through periods of war and truces until one or the other got tired of it and compromised.
"One thing about them, they didn't stop caring about public appearances, right up to the day my father's lawyer served my mother with a copy of the petition for divorce. They would get dressed up, my father in one of his stylish tuxedos and my mother in a designer gown and her diamonds, and even tell each other how nice they looked. Then they would leave, maybe not arm in arm, but together enough to give the appearance things were fine. All they had to do was tell each other how important an event was to her or his careers and they would cooperate, as if it was part of the rules of war that you didn't harm the other's professional life.
"It's weird. They still compliment each other when they speak to other people. I've heard my mother, just as recently as yesterday, brag about my father's talents and the buildings he's designed, and my father has told people how good a businesswoman my mother is. I guess they want to reassure
themselves and others that they had every reason to be fooled. Anyone would have wanted my mother for a wife or my father for a husband. Talk about being civilized about hating each other," I said, shaking my head. "They smile as they shoot at each other with legal bullets."
"Your father's lawyer served your mother papers?" Cat asked. "Where?"
"What difference does that make?" Star asked, but I thought that was a good question because the event of actually receiving such documents is traumatic. I began to wonder more about Cat's story and what had happened between her parents.
"Actually, he just mailed them to her," I said. "She received them at home and found them while she was sifting through the pile of mail with her name on it. Her professional name," I added.
"What did she do?" Star asked.
"Nothing special that night. You'd never know anything was wrong. Remember what I told you about my mother's ability to maintain the fortress of her pride? She might lose, but she's never defeated.
"They were both at dinner. I remember that meal; I remember almost every detail of that, what should I call it, that Last Supper, even though we still ate together afterward. We might even eat together tonight, but that was the last dinner where they pretended they cared enough about each other and me to keep the marriage on track.
"I remember we had chicken Kiev with wild rice. Mother had chosen the wine, a French
Chardonnay. For dessert there was a deep dish apple cobbler with vanilla ice cream."
"You make it sound like a restaurant," Star said.
"It's as good as any I've been to and I've been to quite a few in New York, here and London," I said.
"You've been to London?" Misty asked.
"Of course. We were supposed to go to Paris this year. Mother claims we still will, but just she and I of course, and my father says he will take me on a business trip and has upped the bid to Paris and Madrid. Mother is now considering Venice, Madrid and Paris. It's all on hold, dependent upon the outcome of the divorce, final financial arrangements, custody, etc.," I said.
They were all giving me that look again, those wide eyes of amazement.